Personal RFID Firewall Invented

By consumerist.comDecember 6, 2006

This paper outlines a system for protecting yourself from the threat of RFID bandits snagging the credit card information you broadcast. The “RFID Guardian” jams your RFID signals, then it clones their signals and rebroadcasts them only if and when you tell it. If the banks won’t make the cards more secure, it’s up to the user to protect himself. — BEN POPKEN

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Thank you, but you can use several layers of tin foil to achieve the same effect (according to various websites. (Copper foil or fine mesh is supposed to work the best but its near impossible to find and expensive, expecially considering the fact this hasn’t been tested in the real world.)

That’s a very complicated solution to a simple problem. You just need to shield the signal, not selectively spoof it on command. Maybe if you had chips embedded in things that you couldn’t shield easily this would be more useful.

I hope Consumerist will continue to report on the dangers of RFID. It’s a huge, looming consumer vs. consumer-exploiter battle. Again, the leverage will not come from firewalls, but from consumers refusing to even accept items with RFID in the first place.

This is really stupid as I have never had significant trouble lining my card up with the slot on the card reader. (Sometimes I swipe it backwards, but that’s no big deal). It seems like one of those gimmicky things marketing executives come up with because they have nothing better to do, like that clumsy key-chain card Discover Network released a few years ago.

There is another firewall for any RFID. You get a block of wood and a hammer. Place your CC (or other RFID card/device) on a solid surface like concrete and place the block of wood over your CC/RFID device. Then proceed to beet the hell out of it with the hammer. Kill the RFID chip, no more problems.